false 3618 573 399
"I was born in Norwich in 1946, and educated in England, Zimbabwe, and Australia, before my family settled in North Wales. I received my secondary education at the excellent Ysgol Ardudwy, Harlech, and then went to Exeter College, Oxford, to read English, though I never learned to read it very well.

"I found my way into the teaching profession at the age of 25, and taught at various Oxford Middle Schools before moving to Westminster College in 1986, where I spent eight years involved in teaching students on the B.Ed. course. I have maintained a passionate interest in education, which leads me occasionally to make foolish and ill-considered remarks alleging that not everything is well in our schools. My main concern is that an over-emphasis on testing and league tables has led to a lack of time and freedom for a true, imaginative and humane engagement with literature.

"My views on education are eccentric and unimportant, however. My only real claim to anyone's attention lies in my writing. I've published nearly twenty books, mostly of the sort that are read by children, though I'm happy to say that the natural audience for my work seems to be a mixed one - mixed in age, that is, though the more mixed in every other way as well, the better.

"My first children's book was Count Karlstein (1982, republished in 2002). That was followed by The Ruby in the Smoke (1986), the first in a quartet of books featuring the young Victorian adventurer, Sally Lockhart. I did a great deal of research for the background of these stories, and I don't intend to let it lie unused, so there will almost certainly be more of them.

"I've also written a number of shorter stories which, for want of a better term, I call fairy tales. They include The Firework-Maker's Daughter, I Was a Rat!, and Clockwork, or All Wound Up. This is a kind of story I find very enjoyable, though immensely difficult to write.

"However, my most well-known work is the trilogy His Dark Materials, beginning with Northern Lights ( The Golden Compass in the USA) in 1995, continuing with The Subtle Knife in 1997, and concluding with The Amber Spyglass in 2000. These books have been honoured by several prizes, including the Carnegie Medal, the Guardian Children's Book Award, and (for The Amber Spyglass) the Whitbread Book of the Year Award - the first time in the history of that prize that it was given to a children's book.



"I was the 2002 recipient of the Eleanor Farjeon Award for children's literature. At the award ceremony for that prize, which I was very proud to receive, I promised to spend my time in future making fewer speeches and writing more books.

"When I'm not writing books I like to draw and to make things out of wood. I also like to play the piano. I'd like to play it well, but I can't, so the rest of the family has to put up with my playing it badly."]]> male Norwich, Norfolk, England 1946/10/19 119322 0679879242 9780679879244 4313 <![CDATA[The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1)]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/books/11/322/119322-m-1255984764.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/books/11/322/119322-s-1255984764.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/119322.The_Golden_Compass 3.87 75535 The Golden Compass, a story ostensibly for children but one perhaps even better appreciated by adults. The protagonist of this complex fantasy is young Lyra Belacqua, a precocious orphan growing up within the precincts of Oxford University. But it quickly becomes clear that Lyra's Oxford is not precisely like our own--nor is her world. For one thing, people there each have a personal dæmon, the manifestation of their soul in animal form. For another, hers is a universe in which science, theology, and magic are closely allied:

"As for what experimental theology was, Lyra had no more idea than the urchins. She had formed the notion that it was concerned with magic, with the movements of the stars and planets, with tiny particles of matter, but that was guesswork, really. Probably the stars had dæmons just as humans did, and experimental theology involved talking to them."

Not that Lyra spends much time worrying about it; what she likes best is "clambering over the College roofs with Roger the kitchen boy who was her particular friend, to spit plum stones on the heads of passing Scholars or to hoot like owls outside a window where a tutorial was going on, or racing through the narrow streets, or stealing apples from the market, or waging war." But Lyra's carefree existence changes forever when she and her dæmon, Pantalaimon, first prevent an assassination attempt against her uncle, the powerful Lord Asriel, and then overhear a secret discussion about a mysterious entity known as Dust. Soon she and Pan are swept up in a dangerous game involving disappearing children, a beautiful woman with a golden monkey dæmon, a trip to the far north, and a set of allies ranging from "gyptians" to witches to an armor-clad polar bear.

In The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman has written a masterpiece that transcends genre. It is a children's book that will appeal to adults, a fantasy novel that will charm even the most hardened realist. Best of all, the author doesn't speak down to his audience, nor does he pull his punches; there is genuine terror in this book, and heartbreak, betrayal, and loss. There is also love, loyalty, and an abiding morality that infuses the story but never overwhelms it. This is one of those rare novels that one wishes would never end. Fortunately, its sequel, The Subtle Knife, will help put off that inevitability for a while longer. --Alix Wilber ]]> 3618 3.95 169446 13048 1995 119324 0679879250 9780679879251 1566 <![CDATA[The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, #2)]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1228630575m/119324.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1228630575s/119324.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/119324.The_Subtle_Knife 4.02 25486 The Golden Compass Philip Pullman garnered every accolade under the sun. Critics lobbed around such superlatives as "elegant," "awe-inspiring," "grand," and "glittering," and used "magnificent" with gay abandon. Each reader had a favorite chapter--or, more likely, several--from the opening tour de force to Lyra's close call at Bolvangar to the great armored-bear battle. And Pullman was no less profligate when it came to intellectual firepower or singular characters. The dæmons alone grant him a place in world literature. Could the second installment of his trilogy keep up this pitch, or had his heroine and her too, too sullied parents consumed him? And what of the belief system that pervaded his alternate universe, not to mention the mystery of Dust? More revelations and an equal number of wonders and new players were definitely in order.

The Subtle Knife offers everything we could have wished for, and more. For a start, there's a young hero--from our world--who is a match for Lyra Silvertongue and whose destiny is every bit as shattering. Like Lyra, Will Parry has spent his childhood playing games. Unlike hers, though, his have been deadly serious. This 12-year-old long ago learned the art of invisibility: if he could erase himself, no one would discover his mother's increasing instability and separate them.

As the novel opens, Will's enemies will do anything for information about his missing father, a soldier and Arctic explorer who has been very much airbrushed from the official picture. Now Will must get his mother into safe seclusion and make his way toward Oxford, which may hold the key to John Parry's disappearance. But en route and on the lam from both the police and his family's tormentors, he comes upon a cat with more than a mouse on her mind: "She reached out a paw to pat something in the air in front of her, something quite invisible to Will." What seems to him a patch of everyday Oxford conceals far more: "The cat stepped forward and vanished." Will, too, scrambles through and into another oddly deserted landscape--one in which children rule and adults (and felines) are very much at risk. Here in this deathly silent city by the sea, he will soon have a dustup with a fierce, flinty little girl: "Her expression was a mixture of the very young--when she first tasted the cola--and a kind of deep, sad wariness." Soon Will and Lyra (and, of course, her dæmon, Pantalaimon) uneasily embark on a great adventure and head into greater tragedy.

As Pullman moves between his young warriors and the witch Serafina Pekkala, the magnetic, ever-manipulative Mrs. Coulter, and Lee Scoresby and his hare dæmon, Hester, there are clear signs of approaching war and earthly chaos. There are new faces as well. The author introduces Oxford dark-matter researcher Mary Malone; the Latvian witch queen Ruta Skadi, who "had trafficked with spirits, and it showed"; Stanislaus Grumman, a shaman in search of a weapon crucial to the cause of Lord Asriel, Lyra's father; and a serpentine old man whom Lyra and Pan can't quite place. Also on hand are the Specters, beings that make cliff-ghasts look like rank amateurs.

Throughout, Pullman is in absolute control of his several worlds, his plot and pace equal to his inspiration. Any number of astonishing scenes--small- and large-scale--will have readers on edge, and many are cause for tears. "You think things have to be possible," Will demands. "Things have to be true!" It is Philip Pullman's gift to turn what quotidian minds would term the impossible into a reality that is both heartbreaking and beautiful. --Kerry Fried

]]> 3618 3.95 169446 13048 1997 18122 0440238153 9780440238157 1579 <![CDATA[The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, #3)]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/books/18/122/18122-m-1255886034.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/books/18/122/18122-s-1255886034.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18122.The_Amber_Spyglass 3.95 22797
As war rages and Dust drains from the sky, the fate of the living—and the dead—finally comes to depend on two children and the simple truth of one simple story.]]> 3618 3.95 169446 13048 2000 18116 0440238609 9780440238607 2226 <![CDATA[His Dark Materials Trilogy]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166856232m/18116.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166856232s/18116.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18116.His_Dark_Materials_Trilogy 4.27 16558 3618 3.95 169446 13048 1995 114982 0394895894 9780394895895 246 <![CDATA[The Ruby in the Smoke (Sally Lockhart Trilogy, Book 1)]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/114982.The_Ruby_in_the_Smoke 3.69 2375 The Ruby in the Smoke--a fast-paced, finely crafted thriller set in a rogue- and scalawag-ridden Victorian London. His 16-year-old heroine has no time for the usual trials of adolescence: her father has been murdered, and she needs to find out how and why. But everywhere she turns, she encounters new scoundrels and secrets. Why do the mere words "seven blessings" cause one man to keel over and die at their utterance? Who has possession of the rare, stolen ruby? And what does the opium trade have to do with it?

As our determined and intelligent sleuth sets her mind to unraveling these dark mysteries, she learns how embroiled she is in the whole affair. As riveting and witty as the sensational "penny dreadfuls" of Victorian England (but thousands of times better written), Pullman's trilogy (including The Shadow in the North and The Tiger in the Well) will have readers on the edges of their seats. Ruby is an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. (Ages 12 and older) --Karin Snelson

]]> 3618 3.95 169446 13048 1985 210919 0394825993 9780394825991 100 <![CDATA[The Shadow in the North (Sally Lockhart Trilogy, Book 2)]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210919.The_Shadow_in_the_North 3.72 1497 The Ruby in the Smoke. Sally, now 22, is in business as a financial consultant. When she and her friends challenge corrupt financial interests, they find themselves in a web of intrigue that stretches from fetid slums of the poor to the corporate offices of the richest man in Europe. Sally's detective work reveals the connections between corrupt power and broken lives. The action is fast, scenes are tight and dramatic, the language is vivid, and the wealth of minor characters are sharply individualized. An immensely entertaining thriller."--(starred) Booklist. Reading level: 6.7. ]]> 3618 3.95 169446 13048 1986 531197 0375828192 9780375828195 133 <![CDATA[Lyra's Oxford]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175570343m/531197.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175570343s/531197.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/531197.Lyra_s_Oxford 3.35 1612 His Dark Materials. This undoubtedly beautiful package—cloth-bound in a classy red and adorned by numerous illustrations by master engraver and illustrator John Lawrence—is a must-purchase. A pint-sized pocket volume, Lyra's Oxford packages together a short story set in the same universe as his famous trilogy, a fold-out map of the alternate-reality city of Oxford, a short brochure for a cruise to The Levant aboard the S.S. Zenobia, and a postcard from the inventor of the amber spyglass, Mary Malone. Pullman, in his introduction, suggests that the peripheral items within "might be connected with the story, or they might not; they might be connected to stories that haven't appeared yet. It's difficult to tell."

A very sumptuous and lovingly crafted but tantalizingly brief book , Lyra's Oxford begins when Lyra and Pantalaimon spot a witch's daemon called Ragi being pursued over the rooftops of Oxford by a frenzied pack of birds. The daemon heads straight for Lyra (the creature was given Lyra's name as somebody who might help) and is given shelter. Together Lyra and Pan try to guide the daemon to the home of Sebastian Makepeace—an alchemist living in a part of Oxford known as Jericho—but it is a journey fraught with more danger than they had at first anticipated. (Age 10 and over) --John McLay

]]> 3618 3.95 169446 13048 2003 210918 0679826718 9780679826712 79 <![CDATA[The Tiger in the Well (Sally Lockhart Trilogy, Book 3)]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172726932m/210918.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172726932s/210918.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210918.The_Tiger_in_the_Well 3.77 1269
"Pullman is fast becoming a modern-day Dickens for young adults. The setting is the same, the strong eye for characters is there, as are the brooding atmosphere, the social conscience, and the ability to spin plot within plot. Sally Lockhart is now a young woman, left alone with a toddler. Nothing prepares her for the shock of receiving a summons from a man she has never even heard of, suing for divorce and the custody of her beloved Harriet. Sally struggles against the net closing around her, seeking to find out who is persecuting her and why. The writing style is lively and direct, and there's lots of action. This is a suspense novel with a conscience, and a most enjoyable one."--School Library Journal.  ]]> 3618 3.95 169446 13048 1990 2225238 0375845100 9780375845109 171 <![CDATA[Once Upon a Time in the North]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2225238.Once_Upon_a_Time_in_the_North 3.71 819
It's only after Lee forms an alliance with one of the island's reviled armored bears that he can fight to break up the conspiracy in a gun-twirling classic western shoot out--and battle of wits. This exquisite clothbound volume features the illustrations of John Lawrence, a removable board game—Peril of the Pole—on the inside back cover, and a glimpse for Pullman fans into the first friendship of two of the most beloved characters in the His Dark Materials trilogy: Lee Scoresby and armored bear Iorek Byrnison.]]> 3618 3.95 169446 13048 2008 87273 0439977797 9780439977791 34 <![CDATA[The Tin Princess]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171102555m/87273.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171102555s/87273.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/87273.The_Tin_Princess 3.65 615 3618 3.95 169446 13048 1994